


The Musical Chairs Job

by FletcherHonorama



Series: Leverage International [2]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Canon Compliant, Multi, POV Alec Hardison, Post-Canon, but it's still an ot3, late-stage pre-ot3, the ot3 is not an equilateral triangle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 16:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FletcherHonorama/pseuds/FletcherHonorama
Summary: The job was a simple one designed to test out the flexibility of the Leverage International team: Parker as hacker, Eliot as thief, Hardison as hitter. Nothing they hadn't played around with in the days of Leverage Inc, just now on a much bigger scale and with no safety net to speak of.Sometimes when you take a man out of his element, he makes split-second decisions he maybe wouldn't otherwise have made, and more things change than just professional job descriptions.Sometimes that's not a bad thing.





	The Musical Chairs Job

**Author's Note:**

> A million thank-yous to YourOzness, who very kindly offered to beta and has been a big help with this fic!

"See, I always said I could do your job," Hardison said as they waited to hear from Parker. "Ain't nothing to it." He crossed his arms on the chest, tucking his hands underneath to make his biceps bulge. That was what being a hitter was all about. 

"You ain't done a single thing since we came in here," Eliot said, coming over from the far wall. Hardison held out the little bag and Eliot dropped the last bogus camera into it. That made five fake cameras in a blindspot orchestrated by the company now replaced with real functioning identical cameras that Parker should be seeing the results of any time now. Aaaany time now. Hardison’s fingers itched a little. Being the muscle was _boring_ as all hell. No wonder Eliot was so grim on the job.

Except today he was getting to be Parker, which was fun, and he was still scowling his head off. “I’ve been watching," Hardison told him, tucking the bag away. "Formulating plans of action. Covering exits. Cogitating.” 

Eliot crossed _his_ arms over his chest, which was _cheating_. ”Yeah?” he said. “What's the plan if a dude comes in here with a gun?"

Child’s play. “Distract him so you can get close."

Eliot glared at him. "That ain't much of a plan."

"It's tried and true."

"What if I was busy putting one of the cameras up? What if it's on you?"

Hardison shrugged. "Is this a white dude? A brother? He eighteen, or sixty-three? Shotgun or derringer? It all comes into play. I mean, is it Nate? Is it Chaos?"

 _You're talking too much,_ Parker said in his ear. _You shouldn't do that in the field._

"Ain't nothing else to do, babe."

 _Stoic silence can be sexy,_ she said.

Hardison bit back his laughter and did _not_ look at Eliot. "Got it."

"You close, Parker?" Eliot said, borderline fed up.

 _They're all online,_ she said. _I just have to check it hasn't shown up on their system._

Hardison maintained a stoic silence. 

Eliot elbowed him, which was uncalled for. Hardison was about to give him a what-the-hell gesture, but then Eliot did the two fingers from the eyes to sweeping the room, which, you know, was part of Hardison's job, technically, so fine. 

"We clear on the exit?" he asked Parker.

 _One second,_ she said. One second passed. _Okay, yes. Cameras are online, systems are clear. The corridor and the front door are clear. It still looks more like Eliot is your bodyguard than the other way round. Stand more on the balls of your feet._

Eliot snorted and moved off to the door.

 _There's a security alert on the other side of the building,_ Parker said sharply. _It's - hang on. It's not – is that – I think someone's tried to use a cancelled security pass. They’re doing the amber protocol. No shutdown or sweep._

Hardison hurried on after Eliot. Not that he thought Parker was reading it wrong, but things could kick off real quick in situations like this, and Parker was real good and learning fast, but she wasn’t him. They needed to get out of the building and into Lucille so he could make sure everything was under control. “We can be clear in three minutes," he said. "Less."

_Wait. Wait. There's – a lot of things are going off. I don't think it's anything to do with – there's six things and I can't look at them all at once._

"We're on our way out," Eliot said, tugging the door open and dragging Hardison after him, like he did when he forgot that people could move of their own initiative.

 _There's someone coming your way,_ Parker said just as Hardison pulled the door closed behind them. _Surprise?_

"Uh," said Hardison.

"Who?" said Eliot.

_Security guard. Everyone else is going the other way. He's around the corner and off their security cameras in ten seconds._

Going back through the door was out of the question. The whole job was blown if they were found in there with freshly installed illegal cameras and duplicates in their possession. But they were in a dead spot for the official cameras now, so –

"The camera's still offline in this corridor," Eliot growled. "Right?"

 _Yes,_ said Parker. _I can't see you at all from anywhere and neither can they._

Eliot shifted into a fighting stance.

"Hey, that's my jo –" said Hardison.

_One second._

Well, it was time to take responsibility. Eliot wasn't punching anyone today, if Hardison had anything to do with it. And Hardison, funnily enough, didn’t feel so punchy himself. But what else could he –

And there it was. Hardison grabbed Eliot by the back of the neck, twisted them both into as much of a corner as there was in the halfway to nowhere corridor and kissed him.

It was one of the weirdest things Hardison had ever experienced. Eliot didn't push him off or buy full into the act. He didn't stiffen up or mellow out, he just stayed fighting tense, opened his mouth to Hardison's and wrapped his left arm around Hardison's back. It was none of the things Hardison had expected in the half-second between thought and action, and now his brain was on fire and Eliot, who hadn't shaved in three days, was biting gently on his bottom lip, and this was not at all the way Hardison had planned to have his first ever kiss with a guy.

Someone cleared their throat loudly behind him, and Hardison just about jumped out of his skin. Eliot dropped his arm from around Hardison and put his palm right on Hardison’s beating heart, just holding him there.

"You said no one ever comes down here," Eliot rasped, plenty loud enough so whoever had come up behind Hardison could hear it. There was about two inches still between their mouths, and Hardison had kind of completely and utterly forgotten how to use his.

He swallowed and leaned back away from Eliot, half-turning his head. The security guard was black, which was good, but he was also about ten feet tall and built like Eliot might be in twenty years when he'd settled down and ate three-course gourmet meals three times a day and also still worked out enough to be able to snap people's spines with his bare hands, which was, you know, less good if it came to a fight.

"This is what I was led to believe," Hardison croaked, remembering what Eliot had said. "This is what –"

Eliot gave him a bit of a shove, so he slid around sideways to stand next to Eliot and face the guard. Dude needed a clear line of punch, or something.

 _It's just the one guy,_ Parker said. _He hasn't called anything in. Do you need me to come in? I’m actually too busy to come in, I think. You can handle it._

Eliot rubbed his mouth with one hand and fixed a killer glare at the security guard. Like, literally. 

"Look," said the security guy, raising a calming hand. It wasn’t shaking, which was more than Hardison could say on his own behalf. This guy was made of granite, probably. Cold blood and granite. He even sounded like some kind of golem. How did voices come that deep?

"There's no problem here,” the guard rumbled. “I’ve got no problem with you. My daughter's going to prom tomorrow night in a suit and tie, and she's taking her new girlfriend. I believe in love, and I got no problem with you whatsoever.”

Sweet, sweet relief. "That's beautiful, man," Hardison said, and there were tears in his eyes, and he wasn't exactly sure why, but it couldn't hurt. "She's so lucky to have you. I'm so proud, she's gonna have a great night. The children are our future. That’s so great.”

"Dude," said Eliot, looking him right in the eye with some kind of ironic and/or genuine reassuring or super critical expression. It was very hard to tell. 

"What?" said Hardison. "It's heartwarming. It is. They are."

The guard cleared his throat again. "But this," he said, holding his arms out wide, "really is not the place."

Hardison was nodding his head as soon as the “but” had come out of his mouth. "Yes. Yes. I see that. Yes. This was – you know –"

"It's out of the way," Eliot said.

“Yes,” Hardison said. “Out of the way.”

"Yeah, I know," said the guard. "I actually have a phone call to make, and I don't have a break for three more hours, so I came around –"

"Well, we won't keep you then,” said Eliot. "Good luck to you and your daughter." 

Hardison felt like a handshake would really wrap up the whole scenario pretty neatly, but Eliot put an arm around his waist and edged him away before that plan could be executed. 

"We're clear," Eliot growled as they walked out the front door.

"See?" Hardison said. "I told you I had a plan."

* * *

When they made it back to Lucille, Parker was sitting working at the laptop, all frowny and concentrate-y. Hardison made a beeline for his seat anyway out of habit, but Eliot grabbed him by the arm and tugged him back. Handsy, handsy dude. 

"There was a fight," Parker said without looking away from the screen. "Some lady had been fired and she tried to come in and then there was a fight. I'm running the scrubber to get you off any cameras."

Hardison was dying to take his seat back, but it _wasn’t_ his seat today. It was Parker’s. “Do we know who that guard called?"

"Nobody on the company’s system,” Parker said. "His name is Gregory Gates, I ran him through some of your things but I haven't looked at the results yet. There's no obvious involvement with the scam. I’ll run it fully later.”

"He got a daughter?" Eliot asked.

"I don't know. I didn’t see that on his file.”

Hardison could find that out in two seconds flat, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, the cameras were in, they were out and free and Hardison had kissed Eliot. Hardison had kissed Eliot, and that was just the world they lived in now. A world where Hardison had – 

"Let's drive," said Eliot. He looked at Hardison.

Hitter got to drive. Thank God for that. _Better part of valor_ , Hardison told himself as he closed the side door behind him and hurried around to the driver’s seat. 

Channeling the most outrageously cowardly fighter of 90s RPGs maybe wasn’t the greatest sign when it came to subbing in as a hitter. “Gorion would _not_ be proud of your actions,” Hardison mumbled as he started up Lucille. “Come on, man, get a grip.”

* * *

Back above the brewpub, Hardison sat next to Parker and watched her work. The feed to the cameras in the storage room was operational and secure. Nobody had gone in there yet, but when they did all three of Eliot, Hardison and Parker would get an alert. The ex-employee, Jaylene Morris, had been fired for disciplinary reasons, but Parker apparently didn’t share Hardison’s inquisitive nature and didn’t look too deeply through her employee file or emails. The security incident had been marked as resolved, and there were a few reports on the system already, but with no obvious red flags Parker was giving it a low priority. Hardison would look into it later, when he wouldn’t be stepping on any toes.

Gregory Gates did have a daughter: Melanie Leanne Gates, age 17. His employee file was short: three years in the job, two reprimands, one commendation. There was no way to know who he’d called without getting a hold of his phone, and without any reason to think he was involved in the scam or he suspected Hardison and Eliot of anything other than irresponsible makeouts, it wasn’t worth the follow-up.

And speaking of irresponsible makeouts. Eliot was sitting back at the table drinking beer like the world was his oyster, and had been ever since they got back, and nobody was _talking_ about it, and it was driving Hardison very slowly and painfully up the wall. When Parker had done this to him the first time – and the next time, and the time after that – he'd been dying to talk about it with her, and now _he_ was the one who'd done it to _Eliot_ , and even this way around it was still Hardison who wanted to talk while Eliot was living situation normal, having a quiet beer, all fine and dandy. The universe was cold, cruel and callous, and Hardison had had just about enough of it. 

Parker wound up the final diagnostics check, closed out of a bunch of windows and put the livestream to the storage room up on the display. Then she spun around to face the room in general. “I heard you two kissed," she said.

Hardison suddenly felt very, very cold. Suddenly talking about it didn’t seem like such a great idea. “Uh, you heard –"

"I mean I literally heard it," she said. "I didn't realize how loud it was for everyone else when we did that."

Again, not something Hardison wanted to think about, let alone discuss. “Security guard was coming," he said. "Diversionary.”

"Yeah," said Parker with a fond little smile. "Remember when that was us?"

Hardison finally bit the bullet and looked properly across at Eliot. He was _watching_ them like they were _television_ , bottle held loose in his hand and his feet up. He might as well have been crunching on popcorn.

"I'm very happy for you both," Parker said, so peacefully you'd think she was 500 feet above the ground and about to jump.

"Wait – what? Uh, Parker, this isn’t …” Hardison looked at Eliot, and normally he wasn't a man to beg, but for God's sake, he was drowning here. 

"Well you've been wanting to,” Parker said with a shrug, and stood up. "Right?"

Hardison opened his mouth. He looked at Parker. He looked at Eliot. He looked at Parker. He closed his mouth.

Then he opened it again. "That's not – I never said that to you. I've never said that in my life."

"I'm very observant," said Parker.

"Eliot," Hardison said. "You're really just going to leave me high and dry here. What happened to the bro code, man? What happened to it?"

"Doesn't cover this scenario," Eliot said, and now he was _grinning_.

"Doesn't cover –”

"Anyway, I think the job went well," said Parker. “Don’t you?”

"Hang on one second," said Hardison. The shock was wearing off now, and indignation was starting to rise.

"Yeah," said Eliot. "Pretty well."

"Why are you _fine_?" Hardison said.

"Why wouldn't I be? Job went well."

Hardison watched Parker walk across the room and start to poke around in cupboards, and he remembered things she'd told him. Breathe in, and hold, and out. In, out. In, out. Okay. He stood up, turned away from their security footage, faced Eliot. “So there's no problem," he said. "There's no problem here?"

Eliot rolled his eyes, put his bottle down on the table and his feet on the floor. "If you think that's the first time I've kissed a man, man, you are ... you're wrong."

That really wasn't the point, but Hardison didn't know what was the point, so he couldn't really say so. It was just – Eliot loved real hard, he had Big Feelings around the team, and Hardison had kissed him without any warning, and Hardison was _dating Parker_ , and he did love Eliot, probably, and –

"Hardison," said Eliot, who was suddenly walking right up to him. "We can do it again, we can do it every day, we can go right on as we were before and make this the once and only. Any way it goes, we're good."

"We can do it .... every day," said Hardison as Eliot came to a halt about two feet away. "Are you –"

Eliot raised his eyebrows and lowered them, a little grin on his face. 

"Okay," said Hardison, weirdly short of breath. "I'm going for a walk. I need to go, for a walk."

* * *

Hardison had been lying on his bed staring at the ceiling for somewhere between twenty seconds and seven hours when Parker came into the room, closing the door silently behind her. He shifted across to his left to make room for her even though the bed was big enough for five extra Parkers to lie on it, because with Parker – with anyone, but _especially_ with Parker – you always wanted to make your signals crystal clear. 

She threw herself onto the bed next to him, exhaling dramatically. “Your job is not that fun,” she said.

“Eliot’s either.”

“Yep,” she said. “Mine’s the best.”

Hardison wanted to talk to her about work, about what a good job she’d done, about everything that was still to come with the con and how she saw things unfolding from here. He wanted to ask her about Gregory Gates’ employee file, mention a couple of keyboard shortcuts she’d find useful, ask if she had any questions about the programs she was using, or interface issues, if she wanted him to make any changes or write any new ones for the future, if she needed anything explained.

That would be so much easier than what he _had_ to talk to her about.

“You copied my move,” she said, poking him in the side. Her finger was sharp as hell. “You stole it.”

“I ain’t seen your copyright on it,” Hardison protested, and could have kicked himself. Not the point, not the point, not the point. He rolled over onto his side to face Parker, and in half a second she’d done the same.

They’d lain like this so many times, face to face and bodies separate, and talked long into the night. Sometimes they had sex, sure, and that was really more incredible than he could say, but when Hardison thought about loving Parker, when his mind was a mess and he couldn’t stop thinking about losing Parker, this was what it all came down to: being close and comfortable with each other, soft and quiet, talking, listening, sharing. Just being who they were, together.

Now that he had this, there was no way he was risking it, ever.

But Eliot. Goddamn Eliot.

“You think something seems like a good idea, you know,” he said, “and you've got it all laid out in your head, and it's beautiful, and it's just – it’s completely made-up. It’s imaginary. It's in the fiction section, you know, of the – the brain, where it’s meant to be. Where all that shit’s meant to be. You know?”

Parker just lay there, her eyes fixed on his, with her listening expression on. Hardison supposed that meant he had to keep talking. “I ain't ready for it to be real,” he said. “I don't know how it can be real. How do you take just – brain stuff, and then it’s – you’ve – how do you make the – the change?”

Parker was so still for a second Hardison thought he'd said something really wrong, or that she was way more upset about all this than she’d been letting on. But then she came back to herself. "I know," she said, smiling the faint smile she used to cover up deep, deep emotion.

Oh, of course. Of course. Pretzels. Hardison leaned forwards, half-closing his eyes, and she rested her forehead gently against his. 

"I trust Eliot," she said, so softly. "Don't you?"

"Yes."

"And he already said till death do us part."

"He said till my dying day."

"Same thing."

It all seemed so simple, the way Parker talked about it, the way she saw it. What she was saying was true, and they were lying here together, and the world made so much more sense than it had before she’d come in. "You really don't ... mind?"

Parker shifted back away from him, putting one hand under her cheek and blinking thoughtfully. "I get jealous when you flirt with strangers," she said. "I hate it when other people are interested in you. It's 'not good for you'," she said, with a lazy one-handed finger quote, "so I'm trying not to, but I still am.”

“Okay, so –"

“But it’s Eliot.”

Parker said that like it answered everything, and Hardison suspected maybe it did, but he still wanted to find a way to really properly explain it to himself. “Yeah, I know it is,” he said weakly.

“We’re already a threesome.”

Hardison blinked. “Wait, what?”

“You, me, Eliot,” Parker said, counting on her fingers. “Three.”

Okay. She didn’t really mean _threesome_ threesome. Everything was fine. She just meant, like –

Eliot _had_ kind of said till death do us part.

“I don’t think it makes that much difference, really,” said Parker. 

“Babe,” said Hardison. “It makes a difference.”

“It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

Hardison took a deep breath. Time to ask the question that had been scaring the crap out of him all this time. “It doesn’t change, like, _us_?”

She just looked at him, in a way that told Hardison exactly what was coming. When she said it, he said it with her. “For better or worse, we change together.”

“Alright,” Hardison said. “Alright. Yeah.”

Parker held her fist out to him, he held out his and they sealed it.

“Now go talk to him,” she said. 

* * *

When Hardison walked out into the main room, Eliot was sitting watching the live camera footage, on which exactly zero of anything at all was happening. Like watching paint dry, except the paint was already dry. 

Hardison sat down next to him. How many times had he sat next to Eliot in front of the TV? Plenty, plenty of times. Nothing had to be that different about it.

He sat there trying to decide his opening words, which he probably should have done before he’d come out here. He’d been too full of resolve, running dangerously low on details.

“What we are now is enough, man,” Eliot said, looking towards him but not quite at him.

For half a second Hardison’s heart was primed to break, but then he remembered this was Eliot, and Eliot was a _liar_ and a feelings hiderwho hated when people thought he needed things or, even worse, wanted them. He’d been sitting alone and staring at nothing and clearly having highly unhelpful thoughts.

"Okay,” he said, trying to work his way through the thought process of the Eliot brain. “Okay. But is it like that's enough, enough, or like yeah, it's enough, enough."

Eliot glared at him, which was a win. It was direct eye contact. “That's the same word four times, Hardison.”

Hardison paused. Use your words, Alec. Use your words. "Okay so there's like that's enough, I'll settle for that, it's fine, I can live with it. And there's also that's enough, that's my limit, don't test me, that's it. Full stop. Like, enough is – it can mean a lot of things."

Eliot sat quiet for a long time, watching nothing happen in an empty room on a big screen. It was okay now. Hardison was strong in himself again, and he could wait. Whatever Eliot said would be whatever Eliot said. The world wouldn’t end.

"Option one," Eliot said gruffly. "It's closer to option one."

It took a few seconds for that to process. "Okay," Hardison said once it had. His voice shook, but only a little bit. "Gimme a little time. Let me just –"

"Hardison," said Eliot, shaking his head. "I've been telling you. Any way it goes, we're good."

“Don’t you think, though,” Hardison said, stepping all the way out onto the tightrope, “some ways are better than others?”

Eliot’s smile, when it finally came out, was slow and warm and full of promise. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”


End file.
